M’s maneuverability limited if big salaries can’t be dumped

It’s been an off-season of change, including a new general manager, a new manager, a new coaching staff and a revamped roster.

And, despite suggestions that the club would like to add a big bat like a Bobby Abreu or a Ken Griffey Jr., there is a reasonable chance that the club is done dealing for the moment with the start of spring training just around the corner.

As general manager Jack Zduriencik said Monday night, ”I’m getting close to being prepared to think we’re going to camp with what we have.”

That could change, he was quick to caution, ”with just one phone call.”

Perhaps that call will come from Minnesota. Sources suggest that the Mariners have been trying to clear some room on the payroll by trading left-handed starter Jarrod Washburn to the Twins.

The Twins, like the Mariners, don’t have lots of money, but they do have some interest in Washburn, so much so that Minnesota tried to trade for him last season. One deal discussed in the last week or so involved sending Washburn and catcher Jeff Clement to Minnesota in exchange for 23-year-old outfielder Delmon Young.

The idea would be to get the bulk of Washburn’s $10.35 million salary off the books, even at the expense of having to pay part of it. Adding the right-handed hitting Young, who has a .292 career batting average and who made $1.44 million last year, might make it possible for the Mariners to then turn around and add Abreu (if Seattle didn’t pay much of Washburn’s salary to the Twins) or to add Griffey.

Without a trade of some sort – dealing away Carlos Silva or Miguel Batista would suit the Mariner money fund about as well as trading Washburn – the Mariners don’t have much room to maneuver. One source suggested the club currently has only about $1.5 million with which to play.

”I’m always talking to other clubs,” Zduriencik said. ”Who knows what will happen as we go forward? I’m a realist. We’ll keep the door open to something happening.”

Zduriencik has been busy. Eleven members of the 40-man roster were not in the Seattle organization on Dec. 1. The team’s best RBI man, Raul Ibanez, and the club’s closer, J.J. Putz, are gone. Overall, Seattle is a deeper club. It remains to see if it’s a better one.

”I think we’ve done some things with some long-term benefits for the organization,” Zduriencik said. ”At the same time, the guys we have are going to have to step it up. We have some players here who have to get to the point where they realize they’ve got a chance to be pretty good major league players.”